Application of Semantic Differential Technique and Statistical Approach to Evaluate Designer’s and Consumer’s Perception in Furniture Design

Abstract

Furniture is one of the products that are always changed to meet customer’s requirements. These requirements challenge the designer to develop a product that must satisfy the customer. Many furniture products are designed to satisfy the wide-ranging style of target customer group based on designer’s experiences and preferences and the existing designs both from internal and external company. However, the designer does not know whether the product would satisfy the customer or not until it has been launched into the market. This study therefore applies Semantic Differential (SD) technique to investigate the customer’s perception in furniture products. The main purpose of this study is to discover the differences in perception between consumer and designer in the modern and contemporary style of bed furniture products. The product samples are selected and evaluated by experienced designers and target group of customers. SD technique is applied to measure emotional content in where Kansei words (semantics) are used to describe perception of the selected products. The result of this study shows that SD technique is applicable to furniture design, and that the perception between the designers and the customers is different in certain aspects